"My angel," said the general softly, "take the señorita into the other car. Lie down below the level of the window sills—both. That will be safer."
Madam seized Janice's hand and drew her out through the vestibule. Mr. Day made a motion to Marty.
"Just go along and see that nothing happens to them, my boy," he said.
The Pullman car was fitted with thin steel shutters over the plate-glass windows and they had been closed the night before; but evidently General De Soto Palo did not altogether trust these shutters to keep out stray bullets.
The sharp ping of the lead as it sunk in the woodwork or the more resonant ring of those bullets glancing from the shutters became more and more frequent. The explosion of the guns sounded nearer. It was plain that the government troops were retreating from the southern edge of the mesa where the attack had opened. Dario Gomez and his followers seemed to be pressing on.
"Well, Marty, you wanted to see a battle," his cousin said to the boy. "Are you satisfied now?"
"Huh! I'm not seein' this one, am I?" he challenged. "Hi! what's that?" he added briskly.
The distant shriek of a steam whistle came faintly to her ears. Janice and the general's wife looked at each other. Marty drawled:
"Sounds like the old Constance Colfax comin' into the dock, don't it, Janice? But I reckon they don't have steamboats up in these hills, do they?"